Disney: Truth, Myth, or Trash
In this My Disney Class episode, Howie and Ryan have a little fun being that it is April Fools day. Ok, Ok, it’s true that we have fun every day, but on this special day, we decided to share a fun activity that you can implement in several different ways in your classroom. We are calling it, Truth or Trash!
The way the game is played is simple. One person will give the others a fact about a topic, in our case, it will be Disney related, of course, then the others have to guess whether or not it is a truth or whether it’s trash (lie). Ryan and Howie take turns challenging one another with each of their facts or fact-ish comments, but also share ways they see this activity is used in the classroom and even share what makes a good stretch of the truth and how that you can use that knowledge to decipher whether or not someone or some source is accurately depicting the facts.
Ryan also shares his version of Truth or Trash that he uses in his classroom as a first day, getting to know you activity. Ryan talks about how he gives his students a first-day quiz (insert groans here) where they have to look at a list of ten facts about him and then guess which fact is not true. This is a great way to help students get to know you as a person and not just their teacher and it’s also a great way to start building a foundation for a classroom environment that values sharing. We hope you enjoy today’s episode and hope all of you find more truths than trash out there.
On this episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome back to the record-setting third time, Professor Jerry Johnson from Buena Vista University. Jerry is not only a recurring guest on this show, but both Howie and Ryan are honored to call him a true friend. Want to know more about the incredible things Jerry is doing in his University classes? Check out Episode 13 in season 1 where we first interviewed Jerry and shared the magic he’s making for his students at Buena Vista!
Today, Jerry has come on to talk about a very special passion project that he has been working on with students for three and a half years. This project is something that both Ryan and Howie had not even heard about in all their Disney research, so both of them were highly intrigued to hear more. The project is a documentary called, “Growing Magic: The Mickey Mouse Cornfield Story.”
Jerry and his students’ story starts when they took a two-hour trip to investigate the place were this cornfield Mickey was created. Though it has long disappeared, 1988, Jerry and his students found through talking to some locals, that were around then, they may be onto a very special story. So, on their van ride home, they decided to start this journey of creating a documentary.
After years of work and thirty plus different students lending their specialized skills, “Growing Magic: The Mickey Mouse Cornfield Story” is ready to premiere. The debut will happen March 28th at Buena Vista University with many other screenings happening across the country, including one near Anaheim CA. If you have a chance to catch this film, we really think you will enjoy it. Not only for the stories and Disney history that was captured by Jerry and his students, but also because of the passion and hard work that is evident in this production. We know Walt would give it a “Yeah, that’ll work!”